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Clive Palmer considers quitting LNP

MARK COLVIN: Queensland's richest man is tonight seeking advice about whether to cut ties with the incumbent Liberal-National Party. Clive Palmer is a life member of the LNP and its biggest donor, but his criticism of the recent state budget has seen him fall out of favour with the Premier, Campbell Newman.

The bitter feud has turned personal, with the LNP now urging Mr Palmer to quit the party. But as David Lewis reports, some political analysts say that could prove a costly mistake for the State Government.

DAVID LEWIS: Clive Palmer says he's proud to be a life member of the Liberal-National Party in Queensland. In the lead-up to the LNP's landslide election victory in March this year, he helped to raise more than $500,000 for the party's campaign in a single night.

But the relationship has since turned sour, just months after Premier Campbell Newman and his team were swept into office. Mr Palmer has publicly criticised the LNP's first budget, which included an increase to coal mining royalties. His damaging comments sparked this response from the Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek.

JOHN-PAUL LANGBROEK: We're not going to listen to people who are carping on the sidelines, whether they be independents who just won their seat in the last election and were lucky to win their seat, or someone like Clive Palmer who really needs to have someone on his side say to him, "I don't think you should go on the media, mate, because people are starting to see you as just being someone who talks a lot and delivers very little."

DAVID LEWIS: But arriving at Bond University on the Gold Coast this afternoon, Clive Palmer wasn't going to be silenced. In a speech that was meant to focus on education, the billionaire took aim at the LNP's decision to cut 14,000 positions from the public service.

CLIVE PALMER: It's wrong to destroy peoples' lives and to sack them. I'm prepared to say that because I care about those people.

DAVID LEWIS: Now, it appears the Queensland government has finally lost patience with Mr Palmer. On Friday, the LNP's acting president Gary Spence wrote a letter to the Waratah Coal chairman, encouraging him to consider quitting the party. Today, Mr Palmer told students that wasn't going to happen.

CLIVE PALMER: I'll never be thrown out of the LNP because, you can report that, papers, because most of the members of the LNP support what I've done.

DAVID LEWIS: But speaking to the media shortly afterwards, Mr Palmer sought to clarify his earlier comments, saying if he was to leave, it would be on his own accord.

CLIVE PALMER: I think freedom of speech is very important. I'll just have to consider it this week and see what happens and get my advisors to tell me, you know?

DAVID LEWIS: Political analysts say the public feud could help to whip-up discontent among voters who took to the streets in their thousands last week to protest against the Government's cost-cutting campaign.

Mary Crawford is a visiting scholar at the Queensland University of Technology.

MARY CRAWFORD: What it says to the public at large is that these actions are not favoured by people who have been particularly important to the party over a very long time. And it certainly says the party is perhaps not acting as perhaps some of its members would like.

DAVID LEWIS: Could it also point to further divisions within the party itself?

MARY CRAWFORD: Well there's a possibility of that. I mean, you have to look at the size of the majority which Campbell Newman as Premier has in the Parliament; and of course when you have large numbers of new MPs in Parliament, they are all going to be jostling for position, and if there's dissent and resentment about what's happening in particular electorates, then that doesn't make for harmonious and easy and cooperative working conditions.

DAVID LEWIS: Meanwhile, the Queensland Premier has stopped short of encouraging Mr Palmer to sever ties with the LNP. Campbell Newman says that's a matter for the party executives.

CAMPBELL NEWMAN: I'm focused on running the state of Queensland. I want to sort the state out. I want to make sure that we get our budget back in the black. I want to create jobs for all Queenslanders, and that's exactly what this Government's going to do.

DAVID LEWIS: But it won't be easy. Clive Palmer says many in the LNP share his concerns about the direction the Government is taking. And he says he'll continue to voice his opinion, whether he remains a life member of the party or not.

CLIVE PALMER: I got 700 phone calls over the weekend from Members of Parliament, from people across the length and breadth of Queensland that I've gone door-knocking with 40 years ago, that know me and know what I stand for.